SIMON JR. VS.

COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

GR NO. 100150, JANUARY 5, 1994

FACTS:

A Demolition Notice was signed by Carlos Quimpo in his capacity as an Executive Officer of the Quezon
City Integrated Hawkers Management Council under the Office of the City Mayor. This Notice was sent to
the private respondents, the members and officers of the North EDSA Vendors Association, Incorporated.
The Notice of Demolition was for the removal of private respondents stalls, sari-sari stores and carinderia
to give way to the Peoples Park.

On July 12, 1990, the group of vendors led by their President Roque Fermo filed a letter-complaint
(Pinagsamang Sinumpaang Salaysay) with the CHR against the petitioners, asking the CHR Chairman
Mary Concepcion Bautista for a letter to be addressed to then Mayor Brigido Simon Jr. of Quezon City to
stop the demolition.

CHR in its Resolution ordered the disbursement of financial assistance of not more than 200,000 in favor
of the private respondents and directed the petitioners to desist from further demolition with the warning
that violation of said order would lead to a citation for contempt and arrest.

Petitioners questioned the jurisdiction of CHR and moved for the dismissal of the CHR case. CHR cited
petitioners in contempt for carrying out the demolition despite the order to desist and imposes a fine of
500.00 on each of them.

The motion to dismiss filed by petitioners to CHR was denied and the motion for reconsideration was also
dismissed.

Hence, this case.

ISSUE:

Whether CHR has Jurisdiction over the case and whether they have an adjudicatory power.

RULING:

NO and NO.

CHR has no Jurisdiction to take over the case.

The law provides under Article XIII, Section 18 of the 1987 Constitution that CHR is empowered to
investigate, on its own or on complaint by any party, all forms of human rights violations involving civil and
political rights.

The term "civil rights, has been defined as referring

to those (rights) that belong to every citizen of the state or country, or, in wider sense, to
all its inhabitants, and are not connected with the organization or administration of the
government. They include the rights of property, marriage, equal protection of the laws,
freedom of contract, etc. Or, as otherwise defined civil rights are rights appertaining to a
person by virtue of his citizenship in a state or community. Such term may also refer, in its
general sense, to rights capable of being enforced or redressed in a civil action.
Also, quite often mentioned are the guarantees against involuntary servitude, religious persecution,
unreasonable searches and seizures, and imprisonment for debt.

Political rights, on the other hand, are said to refer to the right to participate, directly or indirectly, in the
establishment or administration of government, the right of suffrage, the right to hold public office, the right
of petition and, in general, the rights appurtenant to citizenship vis-a-vis the management of government.

Recalling the deliberations of the Constitutional Commission, aforequoted, it is readily apparent that the
delegates envisioned a Commission on Human Rights that would focus its attention to the more severe
cases of human rights violations. Delegate Garcia, for instance, mentioned such areas as the "(1) protection
of rights of political detainees, (2) treatment of prisoners and the prevention of tortures, (3) fair and public
trials, (4) cases of disappearances, (5) salvagings and hamletting, and (6) other crimes committed against
the religious." While the enumeration has not likely been meant to have any preclusive effect, more than
just expressing a statement of priority, it is, nonetheless, significant for the tone it has set.

In this case, the court are not prepared to conclude that the demolition of the stalls, sari-sari stores and
carinderia of the private respondents can fall within the compartment of human rights violations involving
civil and political rights intended by the constitution.

With regard to CHRs Adjudicatory Power:

The Court ruled citing the case of Cario v. CHR through then Associate Justice, now Chief Justice Andres
Narvasa, and observed that it is "only the first of the enumerated powers and functions that bears any
resemblance to adjudication or adjudgment," but that resemblance can in no way be synonymous to the
adjudicatory power itself. The Court explained:

. . . The Commission on Human Rights . . . was not meant by the fundamental law to be
another court or quasi-judicial agency in this country, or duplicate much less take over the
functions of the latter.

The most that may be conceded to the Commission in the way of adjudicative power is that
it may investigate, i.e., receive evidence and make findings of fact as regards claimed
human rights violations involving civil and political rights. But fact finding is not adjudication,
and cannot be likened to the judicial function of a court of justice, or even a quasi-judicial
agency or official. The function of receiving evidence and ascertaining therefrom the facts
of a controversy is not a judicial function, properly speaking. To be considered such, the
faculty of receiving evidence and making factual conclusions in a controversy must be
accompanied by the authority of applying the law to those factual conclusions to the end
that the controversy may be decided or determined authoritatively, finally and definitively,
subject to such appeals or modes of review as may be provided by law. This function, to
repeat, the Commission does not have.

After thus laying down at the outset the above rule, we now proceed to the other kernel of this controversy
and, its is, to determine the extent of CHR's investigative power.